Comparison of Sensorimotor and Cognitive Performance of Acute Schizophrenic Inpatients Treated with Remoxipride or Haloperidol

Abstract

29 acute schizophrenic patients according to DSM III and ICD-9 underwent examination of performance regarding cognitive and sensorimotor tasks at the beginning and the end of a 28-day neuroleptic treatment with remoxipride or haloperidol in a double-blind design. Psychopathological symptoms were assessed by Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and Clinical Global Impression, extrapyramidal side effects (ESE) were rated by Simpson-Angus scale. A significant treatment effect for acoustic reaction time tasks, naming of colored stripes and interference could be demonstrated, whereas tapping revealed a significant effect of duration of treatment. Interaction effects regarding time of faults in line tracing, visual sensorimotor reaction time task and interference factor (Stroop test) could be observed. ESE and impairment of performance occurred simultaneously and ESE vanished with clinical improvement. Performance deficits were more pronounced in patients assigned to remoxipride treatment. Possible differential effects on performance under neuroleptic drug treatment will be discussed.

Schizophrenia and the Stroop Effect

“…The effect in one of these studies (Rosse et al, 1992) may be a result of practice rather than a medication effect. The effect of haloperidol found in the other study (Classen & Laux, 1989) was not replicated in another study that also used haloperidol (Serafetinides et al, 1972). A number of factors (e.g., methodology, type of patients) could explain the discrepancy in the results.…”

“…Their findings are limited as they defined Stroop interference as the difference between reading color words in black and naming neutral stimuli, which is not an appropriate measure of Stroop interference. Classen and Laux (1989) employed the card version of the Stroop task to compare the effects of haloperidol (a traditional dopamine blocker) and remoxipride (a dopamine receptor blocker having a selective affinity to D2-receptors) on attention. They treated 29 schizophrenia patients for 28 days and found that haloperidol reduced interference, but remoxipride had no effect on Stroop interference.…”

“…Of the 12 studies that examined the effect of medication in schizophrenia patients, only two (Classen & Laux, 1989;Rosse et al, 1992) reported significant effects of drugs on Stroop interference. The effect in one of these studies (Rosse et al, 1992) may be a result of practice rather than a medication effect.…”

Time course of prefrontal lobe dysfunction in severely depressed in-patients: a longitudinal neuropsychological study

“…Numerous studies reported no negative effect on SCWT of antipsychotic (Serafetinides et al 1972;Hartley & Couper-Smartt, 1978;Killian et al 1984;Berger et al 1989;Classen & Laux 1989) or antidepressive drugs (Killian et al 1984;Jones et al 1986). Likewise, no significant effect of BZD on the interference score were reported by several relevant studies (Nakano et al 1978;Griffiths et al 1986;Boulenger et al 1989).…”